


These Terrible Things; They Only Carried You Home

by rarmaster



Series: FtPverse [8]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, a brief but fairly graphic description of physical abuse (thanks larxene), content warnings for:, cries for ten years about adopted families, ftpverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-04-11
Packaged: 2018-10-17 17:01:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10598310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rarmaster/pseuds/rarmaster
Summary: In which Aerith contemplates the latest addition to her family. (FtPverse)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Ftpverse is Big And Complicated (7-years worth of fic,,,) but the short info you have to know to understand this is just. Ftpverse is set in a parallel universe where there was never a Riku, the Riku we see is the Riku Replica who ended up here Because Reasons. And also Aerith and Leon are adopted siblings.
> 
> Spoilers for FtPverse up through Part 1 of All That Remains??? If that's a thing you care about.

"Always be kind," Aerith remembered her mother telling her and Leon very clearly. Her mother had just finished a conversation with a particularly unkind man, and Aerith remembered feeling completely astonished that her mother had stood so strong in the face of such verbal abuse without cracking for a second. "You never know what anyone else is going through. Perhaps that man is having a particularly rough day. Or perhaps he's always this unpleasant—people are like that, sometimes." She said this with a fond smile and a shrug, then reached down to pat both of their heads, her voice firm, though kind, just like it always was. "But that's _never_ a reason to stop being kind, so long as you can afford to be."

Aerith took that to heart, because, it's the one thing her mother seemed to want to teach them more than anything else. Always be kind. You'll never know how much someone needs it.

 

 

The first time she met Riku was when Leon barged into their house in Traverse Town, carrying the boy unconscious in his arms. Her little brother usually had a level-head in stressful situations, but he _did_ look distressed about something.

"He collapsed, while we were fighting Heartless," Leon explained quickly, which was something else he'd learned from their mother. Basics first, details later, especially when someone was hurt. "I don't know what happened."

He swept into the room and plopped Riku on an empty bed. Aerith moved over to join him, gathering her magic to look over Riku.

"Did he get hit?" she asked.

"Wasn't watching," Leon answered. The distress was in his tone, too. "He's _not_ hurt, though."

Aerith checked anyway. It wasn't that she didn't trust her brother (she did), it was just that there was no harm in double-checking. Leon was right, though. As far as she could tell, there was nothing wrong with Riku. All there was to do was let him rest, and wait.

He did wake up eventually, with a barely intelligible shout about _something_ on his lips, as well as a splitting headache. Aerith could not say her first impression of him was great—he was sharp and biting the whole time, but she could not blame him. He was worried about his friends, he had a right to be upset.

(Or, maybe he was just always like this… But, Aerith did not like believing the worst in people at the start.)

There wasn't really anything she could do for him as far as his headache went, or in tips for locating his friends. But before he left, she made sure to tell him:

"You're always welcome here, if you need a place to stay!"

Because, she could afford to give that kindness, and… maybe he needed that.

 

 

She became better acquainted with Riku over the course of the next few weeks, as he crashed regularly on one of the couches every couple of nights. It wasn't much different with how she grew to know Zack, back when he was just a teen with delusions of grandeur and a budding mercenary job that didn't always pay enough to get by. (Her mother had insisted Zack stay with them, any night he didn't have the money to stay anywhere else.)

Aerith really only saw snatches of Riku, during those weeks, though. He stayed just long enough to sleep, and maybe to spend time with Namine (who was, at the time, staying a little more permanently). And then the worlds restored themselves, and three months passed before she ever saw Riku again.

(Perhaps it was for the best, though, because those three months had been rough, seeing as they were moving back into Radiant Garden. Or, Hollow Bastion, as it was called now. Riku would not have been a burden—Aerith was certain that he could never be a burden—but she was grateful that they had that time alone to figure things out. Those first few months back home were… hard, to say the least.)

Riku stayed longer each time he and Namine visited, and they were _visits,_ not just using her couch as a place to sleep for a night. Aerith got to know him a little better.

He was awkward in conversations, had trouble sitting still. He was reckless, showing up injured more often than not. He was sarcastic too, and often mean, but usually in a way that reminded Aerith of Yuffie. It wasn't that he meant it, he just hadn't been taught manners, apparently. (But not everyone had a mother as wonderful as Aerith's own, she reminded herself.)

There was… something else about Riku, too.

Something that Aerith was having trouble placing.

The way he seemed to ignore certain topics like the plague. The distressed look he got in his eyes, every now and then, for no apparent reason. Like there was some kind of restless discontent boiling under his skin. Plus, there were things he said about the Rebellion, about what he was doing in Castle Oblivion, that made her anxious. How he acted like he didn't even want to be there, but he felt he had to be.

She wanted to help, but wasn't sure how.

So she told him he was welcome to visit, welcome to stay anytime he wanted, and hoped that was enough.

 

 

When Tifa brought Riku in, covered in blood and darkness, Aerith's stomach bottomed out. When she cast her Curaga and the spell didn't take, she forgot how to breathe. It was like Zack all over again.

(Sora's Shadow's voice echoed in her ears. _Doesn't it hurt, to know you that you did everything you could and yet it still wasn't enough, it would never be enough? You failed. You couldn't save him. Some healer you are_ —)

It hurt, it made her sick, but Aerith wasn't going to sit by and let another one of her friends die. She couldn't bear that. She couldn't lose anyone else.

So she pushed down the bad memories bubbling in her head, pulled at the magic inside of her, and healed Riku, as best as she could.

 

 

"I'm just… I'm worried about him," she told Leon, after the third time she'd let Riku go. Each time he left, she regretted letting him more and more.

It… wasn't an unfamiliar feeling. She'd felt the same way, about Yuffie, during those first months in Traverse Town. Waking up every other morning to find Yuffie gone had elicited this feeling in her, until one day she woke up and did not rest until they found Yuffie, and brought her back, and assured her that _it was alright to stay_.

"He finished healing fine," Leon reminded her. "It was alright to let him go back." He looked up from his book, though, and peered at her. "It… _was_ alright, wasn't it?" he asked.

Aerith shifted how she was sitting in her chair. It was the big, comfy chair she and Leon had shared as kids while their mother told them stories. There hadn't been room for it in the living room after installing the second couch, so they'd dragged it up to Leon's room. Leon sat on his bed—the chair wasn't big enough to hold the both of them anymore.

"Yes, it was," Aerith admitted, with a sigh. She pressed her elbow into the arm of the chair, resting her chin in her hand. Riku was as healed and rested as he was going to get, and… she'd felt bad about keeping him here, when he didn't seem to want to stay. (Or rather, didn't think he was _allowed_ to stay.)

Leon leaned towards her, frowning like he knew there was more going on in her mind. Of course he knew. He'd lived with her for 25 years. It was no surprise that he could tell when something left her discontented.

Aerith sighed again, and answered before he could ask.

"I just… feel like he needs so much more."

Leon laughed, a little bit. "More what?"

"I don't know," Aerith said, because that was the bit she hadn't quite puzzled out yet. "But he needs it, whatever it is."

 

 

It was when Riku stayed with them for a week that things started clicking together.

He was distressed the whole week—and, he had every reason to be. But there was something more bugging him than the separation from Namine and the weight of this "experiment" on his shoulders. There had always been something more, under his skin, Aerith realized. Something she thought might explain a lot of the things he did.

The way he seemed surprised to receive any act of kindness. The way he got all twitchy when she healed him. The way he flinched whenever Cid raised his voice. The way his face had scrunched up in confusion every single time she said she was worried about him, the way he laughed it off like he didn't believe her as much as he told her he was fine because he wanted to be left alone.

The little moments started to add up, until she had a pretty good idea of what the picture looked like, long before he told her the whole thing. ( _Shaking and screaming with his forehead to the counter and nails digging into his arms like he wanted to tear himself open and—She wasn't sure what to do so she'd shoved a plate into his hands and told him to break it instead because that was better, anything was better than him hurting himself.)_

She remembered, clearly: sitting on the stairs next to him, because that's where he'd tripped after he'd said something she was sure he hadn't meant to say. ( _"Why don't YOU try getting electrocuted as some sick form of punishment for a while, and—"_ ) She'd helped him up and they'd sat there for a few agonizing seconds while she fumbled for the words and the courage to ask what she needed to.

His choice of the word _punishment_ burned in her mind. It was… hard to think about, but Aerith made herself. She'd been hit by stray Thunder magic before, been hit with _intentional_ Thunder magic, and—it _hurt_. It was probably the most unpleasant kind of elemental magic to get hit by. But… _Punishment_? _Regularly?_ The thought made her sick, and she had to blink through tears to even look at Riku properly, and—

And then there was the worst bit. The way he looked at her tears as if he couldn't possibly fathom why she was crying.

She remembered, clearly: sitting on the other end of the couch from him, him busy with his book, and her with hers. There was no reason she'd looked up at him. She'd just looked up, and it happened to be at the right time to see him press his knuckles sharply into his bad shoulder like he _wanted_ it to hurt.

They'd met eyes for a horrified moment. Riku, horrified he'd been caught. Aerith, horrified by what she'd seen. She'd… She'd wanted to say something, but hadn't been sure what to say, and he was on his feet and leaving the room before she had the chance to gather her words. So she'd been left churning it over in her mind for the rest of the afternoon and well into the night, trying to pick out the right words, replaying potential conversation after potential conversation in her head.

She asked Leon if he had any ideas on how to bring it up, but he was at as much of a loss as she was. So Aerith resolved to bring it up the next time she caught Riku doing it…

Except, she never did catch him. She just watched the number of bruises on his arms grow, eyed his bloody lip (a bloody lip was not enough to bring up) all while her heart was breaking, because she had no idea what to do.

Yuffie, running off, because growing up on the streets had made her feel like she wasn't allowed to stay anywhere for so long? That, Aerith understood. Riku, baffled by any display of kindness, acting like he didn't understand how to be loved? That was harder to understand. And Riku, intentionally hurting himself? That was another beast entirely.

She got her chance to bring it up the last night of the week he was there (a fateful night). She'd just wanted to talk to him about things that, at the time, seemed a little more important. Or, at least, they'd been easier to understand. She'd wanted to talk to him about Namine, about the choice he seemed insistent on making. (The hole Zack's absence left in her life was still an aching wound, and she couldn't imagine someone _willingly_ choosing to take that pain.)

Things just kind of… spiraled, from there.

Talking about Zack turned into Riku babbling incoherently about Namine and things Aerith didn't quite understand, turned into pressing a plate into his hands and telling him to break it.

All the things she'd meant to say fled her mind in the moment, but she did manage to do the one thing she wanted to do most. Pull him into a hug, hold him in her arms, and tell him fiercely that he never, _ever_ deserved pain.

Before the night was out, she'd offered him a place in the family, and crying like he couldn't believe it, he'd accepted.

Be kind, her mother had told her, whenever you can afford to be. And even if Aerith had not been able to afford giving this kindness, she would have dragged it out of herself anyway. Because he deserved it. He deserved the world, deserved to know that _someone did love him,_ deserved to know it and learn how to believe it.

It was the least she could do. It was all she could do.

 

 

When Riku stumbled back home through a dark corridor, just managing to stutter the words " _Larxene's after me_ ", Aerith felt like someone had deftly tied her insides in knots. It was a jumble of emotions inside her chest. Something hot like anger, something sharp like fear—for Riku's sake, as well as the implications of what that meant.

She took Riku in her arms and she whispered " _it's alright, you're safe, she won't get you here_."

Things didn't go as planned.

They did work out, in the end, and that was good. But for weeks and weeks after the fact, Aerith would wake up in a cold sweat after dreaming of the sound of a dark corridor opening, the sound of Riku screaming out in terror.

It all worked out in the end, but, she'd replay the moments over and over again in her head, trying to peg the exact second where she'd forgotten that someone needed to stay with Riku. She'd reconstruct the scene in her mind, pondering how it could have gone, if only she'd stayed with Riku.

She'd been so eager to get her hands on Larxene, to make her pay, but—what if it had gone differently? What if she'd sat by Riku, and held him, and never once let him think he was anything other than completely totally safe? Larxene would likely still come and try to grab him, but Aerith would be there, shielding him with her body, refusing to let him go.

There was no use dwelling on the past, though. No use pondering the ways you wanted to change it.

Things worked out, anyway.

She and Namine and Vexen had gotten help, had tracked Larxene down.

And—that was another thing for her nightmares, entirely.

Arriving on the scene, arriving on the tail end of—she didn't want to think about it. But the scene still stood before her in all its terrible glory. Riku, on the ground, beaten and bloody, with electricity dancing across his body. Larxene, laughter only turning to sharp anger when she realized she had company. The way Riku went limp in her grasp, not fighting back, not once.

( _Punishment,_ he'd called it, and " _every time I pissed her off, which was often_ " he'd explained that fateful night, while curled up in Aerith's arms. He'd told her everything, all the gruesome details, but seeing it before her eyes was something else entirely. She felt like she'd be sick.)

They got Riku away from Larxene, though, with a well-formed plan. Aerith was quick to heal him, to throw up the strongest protect spell she knew around him. And then Aerith stayed with him, stayed between him and Larxene. Namine'd offered to stay with Riku too, and that was fine, but—Aerith wouldn't forgive herself if she left Riku's side again.

She wanted so badly to hold him, now, to hold him and let him shake terrified in her arms, but… Now wasn't the time. She _did_ have to throw cures into the battlefield for her allies. And Riku didn't seem to be scared now, anyway.

"He's- he's my friend!" she shouted, when Larxene demanded to know why she was even here for Riku. _He's family,_ she wanted to say, so so so badly. Because, he was. But she'd swallowed it in that split second, thinking perhaps… It was better if that was a thing Larxene didn't know? Larxene certainly had taken the word _friends_ and twisted it—(It made Aerith's blood boil to hear it, and if Vexen had not shouted in protest, she would have herself)—Aerith did not want to imagine how Larxene might twist the word _family._

(She did not want to make this any worse on Riku, either.)

It was a relief when it was all over, but as far as thing went, that had to have been the most terrifying hour of Aerith's life.

 

 

Riku moved in with them. They all had trouble adjusting, but, in the end he fit in like a piece of a puzzle they'd been missing all along. Helping him unlearn the things he'd been taught—that he was something that no one could possibly love—was hard, and it was slow. But Aerith kept at it.

And when she looked at him, now, compared to where he'd been just months ago, tears of joy welled up in her eyes every time without fail. Because he'd come so far. And she was so proud, so happy for him.

He and Leon would talk for hours on end about books, Riku always eager to dive into any suggestion Leon had for him to read. Riku would sit with Cid and keep him company—keep him awake—into late hours of the night, when Cid had something he needed to finish by that morning and no pressuring on Aerith's part could make him give it up and sleep. And: watching Riku and Yuffie sit next to each other, heads leaned in, talking and laughing about things… It was a beautiful thing to see.

He accepted a hug from Aerith every chance he got. He became clingy enough to rival Yuffie. He started breaking his old habits. Smiling more. Relaxing more.

Instead of a faint distress behind his eyes in every moment, there was happiness. Maybe not all the time, but more often than not, for sure.

Aerith was so, so, _so_ proud.

 

 

"Sometimes… I wonder what Mom would have done, if she'd still been here," Aerith said, slowly. She and Leon both sat in her room, on her bed. It was a wistful thought more than it was anything else. Aerith considered her mother's rocking chair, tucked in the corner, as she spoke.

Leon shook his head beside her. He did that a lot, whenever she tried to talk about _if Mom were still here,_ or _if Zack were still here_. "Mom wouldn't have done any differently than you did," Leon assured her, firmly.

"No, she wouldn't have," Aerith agreed. She believed that fervently, _knew_ that their mother would have looked at Riku and made most of the same choices. But… "Sometimes I just wonder if she would have done it better."

Leon sighed. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and rubbing his hands over his face. "We're doing all we can, for him," he said. "And we're doing all the right things, I think."

"Doesn't feel like enough."

Leon pulled himself up, sending her a fond smile. "Mom would have felt the same way, and you know that. I think that if she- If she knew him, she'd be worried she wasn't doing enough for him either."

Aerith nodded, a similarly fond—though pained—smile on her own lips. Their mother had always given as much as she could, had always fretted that it wasn't enough. She had always wanted to do more, do more, for those she'd taken into her infirmary, even though _more_ was always well and beyond what they needed. And their mother had fretted, too, over raising them. Because taking in two infants and raising them as your own children would never be easy. Their mother had never wanted them to know she worried, but they knew. They knew she'd worried that she wasn't doing nearly enough in their lives.

But she had. She'd done more than enough.

Aerith took a deep breath, nodding to herself.

"I think we're doing okay with him, too," she said.

They sat there in silence for a few moments, Leon playing with his fingers like he wanted to say something, but he was nervous to. She could have nudged him, and told him to get on with it, but she waited instead, waited for him to find the words he wanted.

"Do…" he started, hesitantly. "If she got the chance to meet him. Do you think she'd like him?"

Aerith pressed a hand to her face, warm, soft tears burning in her eyes. She smiled into her hand, though, something bittersweet stirring in her chest. Something bittersweet always stirred within her, thinking thoughts like this. Thinking about the things their mother and Zack didn't get to see, the people they didn't get to meet. (They'd never gotten to meet Yuffie, either.) But…

"Yes," she answered, voice trembling with emotion. "Yes, I- I think she would. I… I wish she could meet him. I wish he could meet her."

Leon nodded, scrubbing at his own eyes.

"Me too."


End file.
